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Steering Angle Solutions
I have read through all the topics. I think there needs to be a one stop spot for all your angle solutions.
I run an 86 coupe, I have upgraded to Wilwood hubs and brakes in the front but did not replace the spindle.
I can not find the post with the clip you can remove from the rack to get more angle. Is it the nylon clip?
I have a Steda front sway bar. It rubs on my tires. I am running 17X8 factory bullit wheels with 245/45 rubber. -2 deg camber, 0 toe, all the way back in upr caster/camber plate. Full upr k member and a-arms.
I need more angle.
Will drop spindles help?
Do the 4cyl fox/thunderbird/cugar racks really have more travel?
Manual rack?
How does ride height effect angle and response, what is a good ride height?
Steering pumps, pullies, coolers?
What helps and doesnt help?
Here is my "steering angle" post: http://www.drift50.com/blog/geoffrey-chandler/oops-all-angles
If you scroll down you can see the picture that I took inside the rack where the nylon stops were removed. They are simply little white c-clips. Not all years of Mustang will have these.
I run the smallest 4 cylinder bar that I could find at the junkyard. This combined with 500lbs Eibach Springs has proven to be a pretty good combo on the front of the car. Part of my reasoning behind choosing a small bar was to eliminate the possibility of tire to bar interference.
Your alignment sounds very similar to what I am running, as do your tires. I seem to have a vague memory that the earlier Mustangs have a more narrow front track and that the inner mounting point for the front control arms was moved outward a bit on later cars. If this is the case, then it would make sense that you are getting some rubbing that I don't get on my car.
Do you know what the offset of your wheels is? (mine: 17 x 8 -30mm wheels with 245/45R17 tire)
Are you running Fox or SN95 Lower Control arms?
Now to answer a couple of your questions:
1. Drop spindles make the car feel better at a lower ride height, but did not add any angle.
2. I would not recommend a manual rack. These are decently heavy cars and you might be surprised by how hard it can be to make steering adjustments while braking with manual steering.
3. I had not heard about 4cyl racks having more travel. That should be easy enough to figure out at the junkyard with a buddy to turn the steering wheel and a tape measure.
4. Ride height could have on impact on angle if your wheel is contacting your control arm, but you don't really want to use steering angle as a gauge for setting your ride height. A good rule of thumb to use for setting ride height is to make sure that your lower control arms are angle up from your wheel to the k-member. Without an aftermarket k-member, or dropped spindles, this will often have your Mustang looking like a 4x4.
5. I am running the stock pump and pulley, but plan on moving to the larger SN95 6 cylinder pulley. I also run a larger steering cooler and have the pump mounted high were the A/C used to live.
6. Longer Lower Control Arms help. The largest single thing that I have yet done for angle on the Mustang was add the SN95 LCAs from Maximum Motorsports. In order to use these you will need to have coilovers, but this fellow modified a stock set that would allow you to retain your conventional spring setup.
I removed the little bushings in the rack already.
Don't know the offset off the top of my head. I will measure the next time I can. It is a stock wheel from a early 2000's body style. Just off the top of my head 5-3/4" back space.
30mm backspace??? Thats like 1.2 inches right?
So your saying Maaximum Motorsports front lower control arms for 94-04 mustang will increase angle on a fox body? Or at least allow for more wheel travel in the control arm area. I am running UPR Kmember and LCA for 87 to 93 mustang upfront with coil overs currently.
What about the spindles for an 86. Right now I rub the sway bar, but its 1" diameter, I like how tight the front end feels, with stiffer springs that counters the need for the large sway bar? 500 lb springs are pretty tight, What about the spindles for an 86. Maybe a drop spindle for 87 up will help this? I could also put some spacers on the front wheels to bring it out some. I have long studs on fronts.
Maybe I will post some pics so you can see what I am talking about.
The 240 guys cut there tie rod mounts on there spindles and reweld closer to inside on spindle to get more angle.
Larger power steering pullley spins pump faster correct? What RPM are you usually drifting at? I run at around 3k-6.5k. With the pump pumping faster=quicker steering response?
I would like to know rotor face to rotor face measurements to check track width. I have upgrade to wilwood hubs, but don't know if that affected track width from factory.
What is your ride height and where do you get that measurement from, front and rear?
If I install a 17 x 9 with a 22mm offset in front and a 17 x 10 with a 18mm offset in the rear will I have frame clearance problems? I see you are running a rim 1 inch less wide but with 8mm more offset and the clearance looks good but what would it do if i added an imaginary 1/2" to both sides of the rim but ran the same size tires?
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MY PERSONAL PROFILE & BLOG
Well, according to my math 8 millimeters = 0.31496063 inch. So you will loose a little bit of clearance up front. Depending on how you are setup, rim to control arm clearance may not be an issue. Right now my car has about 1" of clearance at full lock, so I would add a wider rim with no issues.
One thing to remember, you may needed more expensive tires, and those can put the hurt on the wallet for a drift car.
Thanks for the help. Those rims are going to be for show and my co-worker gave me some ones to drift with that are 17 x 8 front and back. I might leave the nice ones on in the front for more grip but most likely I will be running the cheap rubber. I will be running some cheap Kumo street performance tires. I still have to do the 5 lug conversion and I'm going to do the Maximum Motorsports one with the rear hub conversion to rotor with an E-Locker differential, I like your air locker but this one is cheaper. The differential and axels will be 31 spline.
MUSTANG BLOG
MY PERSONAL PROFILE & BLOG
Front wheel clearance is the biggest limiting factor for Foxs. Even with a smaller sway bar, or even no sway bar (like my car) you'll run into the frame in no time. An easy way to add room is to use 96-98 Mustang spindles. They are 16mm wider (5/8") wider (per pair). And to answere ICNTDRV s question, I did the same thing as lots of the drift guys do- I cut and moved the tie-rod pick up points in. It gives you way faster response because you are turning faster with less effort. Its also gives more angle from less work of the rack. A bigger more aggressive pump might be overcompensating, and lose feel from the steering (like an american car from the 50's or 60's). I am also running Griggs 95 Lower control arms, pushing the track width even further out. In addition to that, I am running huge 25mm spacers, and 20mm offset rims. Again, you are gaining clearance from the frame, sway bars, etc. Of course you'll have to get creative with body work, but its worth it. An added bonus of pulling the wheels out using spacers, is increasing the scrub radius. With so much camber (because you pulled the lower ball joint out so far), your car will raise and lower it's wheels much more, which actually acts to help maintain control since it will force the weight of the car to move along with the steering.
I would recommend running atleast a cooler on a stock pump- Geoff upgraded his cooler to a 95 unit I believe which I'll be doing myself soon- good tip Geoff!
Is the spindle upgrade necisary? (Icntspl either) Can you just get the added width with spacers? I have long wheel studs up front. I think they are 2" with out measuring them. I could easily put a up to a 1" spacer between wheel and rotor and still have thread sticking out.
Pictures of your tie-rod modification please.
How far back did you move them?
The cooler is my next modification. I just put stiffer springs all around, and took the front swaybar off. Big improvment. That and learning to use 3rd gear. I was too scared.
Here is a picture of how much angle I am getting now.
Also pictrures of how far your front wheels stick out or your front fender modifications.
Thanks
For fender mods, I just loosened up all the bolts and pulled the fenders out a bit, then used an old baseball bat to roll the inner lip under. It is my understanding that a 1990 has more fender room then earlier cars. Right now I have the wheels off and the car up to install a strut tower and subframe brace, but I will snap a picture once I set the car back down.
http://www.wesduenkel.com/ChickMagnet/Gallery_FrontFenders/images/fender...
im honestly probably going to this route at some point. Those are the Tiger Racing ones, they come in fiberglass or Carbon Fiber. heres a cool little write up I found on the corral
http://www.inertiasport.com/maier-racing-fender-flares-for-the-mustang-c...
One advantage to running a GT over an LX isthe amount of clearance at the front of the fender. When I had the car setup with forward offset contol arms, I got out the snips and actually removed the lower portion of the sheetmetal on the front fenders. Since the GT bumper extensions cover that area, it is hard to tell anything has been done. I plan to make a fender push bracket to widen out the front of the fender a 1/2 inch or so mostly for asthetics, so the tire is not as visible when looking at the car head on. With a 245 tire, you can get away with stock fenders and a little massage, and I am not convinced that you need more tire then that for drifting, especially considering that a wider tire could limit steering angle.
I like the Maier fenders. Maybe some day when I can actually afford my car hobbie.
I did the same lower fender trim job.
Later this week I will have the car on a lift and I will experiment adding spacers to the front to get more angle.
Post pictures of the tie rod modification.
As for the steering cooler. Just a transmission cooler? With or with out a fan?
The steering cooler:
http://www.drift50.com/power-steering-cooler-upgrade
Could you tell the difference when it was installed or is it just a pump life span thing?
It seems like sometimes the wheel just goes where I want it to and other times it has like dead spots where it just stops turning and I have to throw it.
Only life span.
It sounds to me like you might have something interfering with clean rotation of your steering column. Before replacing the transmission mount and raising the exhaust, I was getting a similar issue caused by the addition of BBK headers.
you could be right. I didn't think of that. I did replace the joints and shaft by the header to flaming river stuff to clear. But under load, I maybe getting into it.
i am not driving on coils right now and i turned the wheel all the way and i got stock ponys on my car and i have still like a 3 in clearence till i hit the control arm but my steering rack stops the wheels from going anymore. any ideas on how to mark the travel of the steering rack more?
Just to up date.
I had a lose kmember. That fixed the header problem.
Next I added 1/4" spacers on front wheels. No bind now, just the rack is the stop now.
I also added a 12"x8" transmission cooler for the steering pump, what a difference. I thought that I was binding up but it was the pump running hot. Best money spent on steering.
all the way in and all the way back set up for the caster camber plates on an alignment.
I also pulled the nylon stops out of the rack.
I have noticed when drifting that if the front tires dont hit anything up front you can control the car so much better. I used to spin out when I hit my limit with angle and now I can control at the limit with the gas.
another game changer for me was the stiffer springs, I put 500lb in the front and 350lb in the rear on coilovers. Removed the front sway bar and run an antiroll bar in the rear. I was running the UPR antiroll bar, but have broken it twice now. I will be fabricating something in the trunk similar the the UPR unit but heavier duty with more material soon. It still drifts good with the stiff springs, but the antiroll bar helps alot. I can not go panhard bar because I set the car up originally to drag and I dont want to put much more into the rear.
If I do a drift specific car it will be panhard though.
I have been considering moving the tierod mount on the spindle. If anyone has done this chime in please. I would like to see some pictures or to know how far you moved them back. Also what size wheel spacers your running. And did you do this mod. to drop spindles or just the stock 95 spindles?
Thanks for the great 5.0 drift information.
Pull out the steering limiters. They are plastic c-clips under the dust boots. It only takes about 5 minutes to get them out. If you still have more space, your next option is to either machine down the inner tierods or order a custom spindle from RaceCraft with a 1/2" shorter steering arm. I personally would go the RaceCraft route.
Spacers & Tierod Pickup points
I run 25mm or 1" H&R hub centric spacers up front. My tie-rod pick up points have been moved inward about 1.5" inches - but I dont have any specific photos-yet.
Remember running spacers on the front will increase your scrub radius quite a bit, and you'll have to make sure you can clear the body work with the new wheel track, especially under suspension compression while countersteering.
Id go with just a different rear anti-roll bar. From my understanding those drag bars are too stiff and arent made for all movement of handling, just a launch to keep the car flat.
ok thank you guys. I am going to try it and see what happens.
I am now running a modified RaceCraft spindle, tierod pickup shortened 1/2 inch. The guys at RaceCraft can make these to order.
I had to put the rack limiters back in for now, because the wheel hits the control arms, way before I run out of rack.
i have a stock 93 mustang vert suspension wise, today i removed the steering rack limiters and i have some before and after pics
All the way to the left
Before
After
All the way to the right
Before
After
now if i remove those limiters the car will still be fine to drive everyday right?
You need to check clearance side to side, but if it is all clear, you will be fine. You are not going to overcenter the rack or anything like that.
I just love that improvement on your angle, that's just sick! But I don't understand what is a "steering rack limiter" so could you guys please make a picture of it and where it's at. THANKS A LOT!
Sry for my bad English and the missunderstanding :( and thanks for your help
Cut the big clamp on your dust boot for your inner tie rod for your steering rack. Theres usually a plastic circular clip that slips over shaft and prevents the shaft from going in further. If you see it it jut slips right off. Not every car had them, pretty sure it was almost just the v8 cars with the "performance rack"
It is a little white plastic piece that lives here:
thanks Geoffrey!
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